Omaha daily bee., 1887-01-03
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Reckless Statistics,

Statistics are only valuable us they are
reliable. Reliable figures of municipal
growth, of commercial advance and
manufacturing development as published
each year in the BEES annual review
form milcstones by which the journey of
Omaha can be marked along the path of
progress and her rate of growth can be
compared with that Of her rivals and
neighbors. In full recognition of this
fact, we have. year by year, earnestly and
with infinite care and pains, used every
Cndeavor to make our reviews as far as
possible above criticism. Every state.
mont collected has been verified and re-
verified, every table subjected to the re-
vision and criticism of experts and the
footings and comparisons have been
summed up and made without initiation
or expansion and as impartially as if they
referred to San Francisco or New Orleans
and not to city in which all our readers
are vitaily interested.
It's accuracy has formed the chlct
value of the BEES annual showing of the
trade and business of Omaha. Merchants
who have followed it on each recurring
anniversary know its worth and appreci-
ate it for the insight which il regularly
gives them into the commercial and in
dustrial advance of great city.
When the hotch potch of figures pub
llshed by some of its contemporaries is
compared with the annual review of the
Omaha BEE the contrast is at once ap-
parent The New Years advertising
sheet Of the Omaha Hcr0id is striking
10 - ia tnI l,tI
guess work. and worthless figures. If it
had been made up in the office without
any investigation it could scarcely be
more valuclcss as an index of Omaha's
advancement. It's building record is
filled with duplicated buildings, with
estimates of structures which are only in
contemplation, and with the names of
stores and buildings built and occupied
more than year since. On single
street the Herald has credited this city
with nearly million dollars worth of
buildings, which have not yet reached
the second story. A hole in the ground
which it cost 800 to eXcavate ut the cor
ner of Tenth andFarnum is put down Mt
$500 The Merchants National bank
building, whore they are still driving
piles for the foundation, is estimated at an
equal sum, while the foundation for the
First National opposite is generously
counted in at $225,000. The Paxton
building, barely begun. is figured in this
remarkable showing of buildings con.
structed at 100000, the Y. Nj. G. A.
building still on paper at $4,000,
and the Congregational church, rep.
resented by hole in the ground
and few cart load of bricks,
at $50, 900. More than hundred errors
OF the same nature run through this one
particular in the Hcrald'S estimate of
Omahas growth.
An examination OF the HeraNS stats
| ties of business done by the jobbing trade
| in this city during the past year shows
| scarcely fewer errors. The whole list
| appears rs If mere guesSwork. 1t quotes
Omaha as having manufactured and
"held on commission" 81 600, 900 of jew
| elry. This is about on par with the
heading that the Herdd has the largest
| actual paid circulation in the state. No
| body knows what is meant by "held on
commission" any more than what is
meant by actual paid circulation" The
| ldCl II ludJ olLhuu uOtS NO. ulduuidCluIS
! 100000 worth of iewelry in a year, and
there has never been 100000 worth of
| jewelry held Oh commission at any time.
On the other hand the Herald places the
| wholesale lumber trade in 1886 at frac-
ton over 81, ,0O0, 900, when III fact it was
nearly S6,500,0O0, and exceeded A,25O, 900
in 1850. In tho same reckless spirit of
guesswork the Herald has underestimated
the wholesale grocery trade by three
millions and half and figured it out as
over two millions less than it amounted
to year ago. And so it runs
down the whole list, A million
or two more or less is nothing to
the imaginative writer who figured up
the trade statistics for the Herald.
Wholesale sales of dry goods are quoted
at sl5O,OOO when a single house sold $780,,
600 last year, and the combined sales OF
dry goods and notions are given by the